The Key of the Chest (5 page)

‘It's locked,' said the policeman.

‘I think so,' muttered Charlie.

‘Didn't you try to open it?' asked the policeman.

‘Can you open it?' asked Charlie, with a weary smile.

The policeman tried again, but the box appeared one solid piece. ‘No,' he said, turning it round in his hands. Then he found a tiny opening for a thin flat key and, scraping it with his nail, exposed a small brass lock. The policeman scratched his cheek. ‘Where's his clothes?'

‘On the chair there.'

The policeman turned to the fire and started methodically going through the pockets. A cigar cutter, a piece of white string, a foreign silver coin and a florin. No papers, nothing else, and certainly not a key.

The policeman stood looking at this miniature seaman's chest. It was not very heavy and might contain documents, the ship's papers, perhaps in a foreign tongue. It would have to be broken open – but that could wait meantime. Let the investigation be finished first.

He returned to the table and entered in his notebook an account of the chest, its discovery, and its voluntary exhibition by Charlie.

‘And what more did you do?'

Charlie slowly sat down. ‘What more could I do – until the daylight came?'

‘I know,' said the policeman. ‘I'm only asking you, just to get it all down. Did you go out when the daylight came?'

‘Yes. I went down to the shore again. There's some timber. I saw some planks washing along the rocks. But I saw nothing else and there's no sign of the vessel. With the body in the house, I had to wait for Dougald. I was feeling pretty tired, too. So in the end Dougald went for you.'

Presently the policeman drew a quick line in his notebook.

‘Your evidence is very good and clear. You did well. And indeed you must be feeling tired after such a night.'

‘To tell the truth, I am,' said Charlie, and he stretched himself. As he yawned his jaws quivered. Then he smiled with the weary satire that suggested it was not the sort of night one would like to have often. But he appeared more cheerful as he got to his feet.

‘Are you too tired to come down with me to the shore for one minute?' asked the policeman considerately.

‘Not a bit,' said Charlie.

The policeman thanked him and added: ‘When we come back you'll just go and take some sleep.'

Dougald led the way to the door and, as he went out, filled his chest with air. The other two followed him to the brink of the descent. At first there were clearly defined steps worn through long usage in the grassy brow, but soon one had to pick one's footing carefully in the rocky zig-zag down the irregular cliff.

At one point the policeman paused and asked, ‘Did you carry him up this?'

‘I did,' said Charlie.

The policeman showed his admiration of the feat.

It was a small creek, with rounded stones on its slip of beach, sheltered on the right hand by a reef of low dark rock which at ten yards dipped, to rise again, to dip and rise once more, until the outermost spit set the swell boiling. On the left the broken cliff wall fell slightly away to come again more boldly in a headland called the Point.

Charlie's open boat was drawn up and lay on her side. Lobster creels, a mast and sail, oars, were tucked away in a low opening or cave at the root of the rock which they had
descended. By the cave's mouth was an old rusty winch for hauling up the boat.

‘Was it here you took him in?' asked the policeman.

Charlie nodded to the spot. ‘Just there.'

The policeman climbed up on the skerry and looked about him. A low black reef, with the sea sucking white from its fangs to rise again in a drowning spout. From somewhere near the Point came a regular explosive boom. The cliffs were sheer, and, beyond them, the sea again.

The policeman jumped down. ‘They hadn't a chance.'

They all stood silent for a little.

Suddenly Dougald turned to his brother. ‘Go away home,' he said gruffly. ‘You're looking grey.'

Charlie closed his mouth firmly as if his teeth had been chattering, and the smile was only in his eyes.

‘Do you that,' said the policeman warmly. ‘Have a rest before the doctor comes. There will be the customary formalities. But if you answer as you answered me, there should be no difficulty for any of us.'

‘All right,' said Charlie, ‘if I can be of no more use to you—' He turned, sidestepping for a moment like a drunk man, and left them.

‘Your brother went through a lot last night,' said the policeman, looking after him.

‘He did that,' said Dougald, looking at the policeman.

Two hours later, as the doctor drew near on Kenneth Grant's pony, the policeman went to meet him, leaving Dougald at the gable-end of the cottage.

The doctor dismounted and they stood talking together for a long time. When the doctor had heard the whole story, he said, ‘Good, we'll have a look at him.'

The doctor was an athletic figure, thirty-seven years old, with an alert quiet face and an easy manner. ‘It was a wild night last night,' he said casually, the slight Highland intonation conveying a natural friendliness.

‘It was that indeed,' agreed the policeman, feeling now fully supported. The doctor was well liked and considered very able. Women talked of him confidently among themselves. For a bachelor, some of the older women thought he had a great understanding. The nurse, a hardy active brown woman of over fifty, who had had some training in mid-wifery, talked of him as ‘very skilled'. The policeman glanced at the cool expression and saw the grey eyes taken up with the appearance of the cottage in its slight hollow, a sheltering outcrop of lichened rock beyond it.

The doctor did not appear to think Dougald's manner unusual, but there were a few seconds when his eyes rested on the weathered whiskered features.

‘You can tie up the pony, Dougald,' said the policeman.

The doctor paused to clap the beast as Dougald led it towards the byre, then he opened the door, stooping a little from force of habit, and went in.

At once his attention was drawn to a body stretched out stiffly before the fire. Laying his hat automatically on the table, he went directly to the figure and stooped. The policeman, entering behind him, stood for a moment unable to speak. As the doctor's hand touched him Charlie
wakened and in no time was on his feet, his teeth showing, and his disordered hair giving a strong impression of fright.

The doctor, who had stepped back, said with humoured restraint, ‘I thought there was a mistake somewhere!'

There was a wildness in Charlie's confusion as he glanced away from the doctor's eyes. ‘I was asleep,' he muttered.

‘You'll have to go to bed properly,' said the doctor.‘You need it.'

Dougald's footsteps paused on the threshold. The doctor turned to the bed and was at once attracted by the face of the dead seaman. He studied it minutely; then he swept the bed-clothes off the body and gave it a careful examination, his back to the three men, who stood clear of the window light. When he had finished with the body, he drew the clothes over it, took a thoughtful step or two forward, then paused and said to Charlie in a normal conversational tone:

‘You say the body was alive when it came ashore?'

‘Yes.'

‘Uhm.' The doctor withdrew his eyes for a moment, then looked at Charlie again. ‘How long would it be from the time you carried him up here until he died?'

‘Not very long.'

‘An hour? Two hours?'

‘It could hardly have been an hour,' Charlie replied after thinking for a little.

The doctor glanced at his watch. ‘Say he died at one in the morning – that would be about it?'

‘Yes,' said Charlie.

‘Fourteen hours,' murmured the doctor, and he nodded thoughtfully.

‘I understand he was alive when you brought him in here?'

‘Yes.'

‘How do you know that?'

‘Well, I felt a movement in him.'

There was a certain easy humour in the doctor's face as he asked, ‘Would you be prepared to swear to it?'

Charlie's brows gathered a trifle and he looked through the window but did not answer.

‘Anyway, you're quite sure he was alive in the water?'

‘Yes,' said Charlie, now with a certain reserve.

‘How were you sure?'

‘Because he used his voice and was kicking with his legs.'

‘That's usually enough,' agreed the doctor. ‘What did he say?'

‘I don't know. It sounded like a foreign language. But he didn't say much.'

‘He lost consciousness as you got him ashore?'

‘Yes. It was not easy. There was a back eddy coming off the cliff.'

‘Did it nearly get you?'

‘It did.'

The doctor was silent for a moment. His voice had been dry and matter-of-fact but quite friendly.

‘Then you carried him up here?'

‘Yes.'

‘He's over ten stone, I should say – a pretty good lift.' He looked at Charlie, not as it were to observe him but thoughtfully. ‘How did you carry him?'

‘On my back.'

‘Where was his head?'

Charlie moved restlessly. His reserve had set a thin smile on his haggard face. ‘His head? – somewhere about here,' and he raised a hand towards his right shoulder. ‘I just got under him and took him on my back.'

The doctor thought for a moment. ‘Fourteen or fifteen hours ago – that could be about right.' Then he added, ‘Would you mind leaving us for a little? We must consider our official reports.'

The brothers withdrew and closed the door. The doctor listened carefully to their footsteps receding in the direction of the byre, then he turned to the policeman and without any emphasis said, ‘It seems a clear case of strangulation.'

As the policeman's eyes opened wide, their innocent blue caught a lot of light and were suddenly in striking contrast to his black hair and full rosy face. He turned them on the doctor in silent absolute astonishment.

‘Here,' said the doctor, clearing things off the table, ‘give
me a hand…. You take his legs. The light is too dim in this bed.'

The body was quite stiff and easily carried to the table. A certain dark congestion in the features was much more discernible under the clear light of the window. The doctor's attention was concentrated and objective. He might have been examining a piece of mechanism which had ceased to work, an engine that had broken down, whose parts he knew intimately and rather liked looking at and touching. ‘Some bad bruises. He got nipped there, and a real good blow there. See that?… Now, see the bruise marks here. Across the throat and under the ears. He was gripped there. That stopped him breathing. You can see the congestion of the features as he was choked.'

‘My God,' breathed the policeman, ‘do you mean – he was murdered?'

The doctor smiled into the policeman's intense expression. ‘I said choked, strangled – not murdered. We mustn't fly too far ahead.'

‘But – you mean he was strangled by someone's hands?'

‘Strangled anyway. Beyond doubt.'

The doctor's easy manner had its steadying influence. ‘You can see the marks for yourself, can't you?'

The policeman began to look at them again. ‘Yes. Will I put it down—'

‘Don't bother meantime. Give me a hand.'

They carried the body back to the bed, where the doctor lingered a moment looking at the face. ‘Quick-tempered, but able. He didn't stand fools gladly.' He drew the sheet over the face.

‘This changes everything,' said the policeman. ‘I'll have to get in touch with the Procurator-Fiscal at once.'

The doctor agreed. ‘Is this the chest?' He lifted it on to the table and began to examine it as he had examined the body. ‘It's beautifully made,' he said. Then his eyes were held. ‘What's this?'

‘No, no,' said the policeman.‘I did that, scratching for the lock. There wasn't a mark there.'

The doctor crouched down and got his eye on a level with the lock. Then he stood up, finished with the chest.
‘That's about all we can do meantime. I want to have a glance at the shore and the place he said he carried him up.'

‘What about this chest?'

‘We could force it. Or do you think it would be better to wait for the Fiscal?'

‘I think so,' said the policeman. ‘I'll carry it home with me. I'll put word to the Fiscal at once. He could be here tomorrow.'

‘That would do,' said the doctor. ‘Of course – not a word to them meantime.'

‘No, no,' said the policeman. ‘Not to anyone.' His voice was still inclined to whisper and his breath to ball.

‘By the way, showme that money?' The doctor examined the foreign coin. ‘A Swedish kroner. I thought he was a Swede. Well, shall we go?' He lifted his hat and the policeman followed him.

The policeman saw Dougald's head protruding from the byre door. Dougald uttered a hoarse word and emerged, followed by Charlie. In an instant, the policeman got a completely new and unhuman view of the two brothers. Dougald looked uncouth as some primeval animal and Charlie had something peculiar in his face, the haggard nonchalant grace of one who had committed a crime. Despite his six feet of pliant, powerful body, he looked light and grey. They approached in what seemed a shambling, stumbling way.

‘I just want to have a look at the shore,' called the doctor lightly. ‘Then we'll be off.' And he started out, followed in single file by the others.

‘You did pretty well carrying him up that,' said the doctor to Charlie, on their return to the cottage. ‘And what you need now is a real good sleep.'

The policeman had hardly spoken to the brothers. ‘We'll be out in the morning,' he now said.‘And that reminds me. I'll have to arrange for the burial.' He looked at Dougald. ‘Have you a measuring rule?'

‘You can take it,' said the doctor as he mounted the pony, ‘at five feet eight. And now, if you give me hold of that box—'

‘Not at all,' said the policeman, ‘I can easily carry it.'

But the doctor had his way, and called over his shoulder to the brothers,‘To-morrow forenoon, then.'

The policeman walked beside the pony for about a couple of miles. They discussed what had to be done next. The seaman would, of course, have to be buried in the churchyard. The policeman would get in touch with the Sanitary Inspector, see to everything, so that all would be done, and charged for, according to law. He had never had such a case before.

‘I'll look in and see the minister on my way home,' the doctor volunteered.

‘That would be a great help, thank you.' The policeman was grateful. They went on in a thoughtful silence.

‘Do you think you could carry this now?' asked the doctor.‘I have still one or two calls to make.'

The policeman lifted the chest off the pony, and, after a final few words about meeting at the police station in the morning, the doctor set the pony to a trot on the open moor.